After a lengthy hiatus from the DAC market, Arcam rolled its
sleeves up and returned to the category in 2010 with the rDAC. Since then, the
company has extended its range of ‘r’ products including the truly excellent
rBlink Bluetooth receiver and simple rPac DAC. At the other end of the product
scale, the company has also launched the flagship D33 DAC that is designed to
go toe-to-toe with the increasing numbers of high-end offerings at a
(relatively) sane price.

Arcam’s latest
little black box

With the rDAC now over three years old and the DAC market moving
at a fast pace thanks to demand and technical progress, Arcam has put its
little silver box out to pasture and replaced it with a slightly bigger black
one. The irDAC might look like a corn fed rDAC with a new paint job, but
internally the new model is almost completely different and in many ways has
more in common with the D33 at five times the price. If Arcam has succeeded at
the age-old challenge of putting a quart in a pint pot, this could be a very
impressive product indeed.

The biggest single change in the irDAC is the switch from a
Wolfson DAC to a Burr Brown PCM1796 chip, which has more in common with the
rest of the Arcam range. This is partnered with fairly elaborate power supply
arrangements. Although the irDAC uses a wall wart power supply, internally it
utilizes eight separately regulated power supplies that have been developed
making use of the experience gained from the low noise supplies in the D33. The
irDAC also uses the jitter reduction circuitry developed for its bigger
brother.

The good news is that as well as boasting all this
technology, the irDAC also offers more connectivity than its predecessor – and
much of the competition as well. The Arcam has two optical and two coaxial
inputs as well as a USB-B input all of which gain 24/192 kHz capability. It
also features an additional USB A socket that can be connected to an Apple
device (including Lightning connector units) and take a digital signal straight
off them. These are partnered with an RCA analogue output and a single coaxial
digital output. Like the rest of the Arcam digital range, the irDAC is
exclusively line level and anyone looking for a DAC/preamp will have to go
elsewhere. That being said, in terms of inputs, it is now one of the best
specked out there. Pretty much the only feature that could have been wished for
would have been the fantastic Bluetooth module from the rBlink, but this would
undoubtedly have pushed the price up.

Bass is clean,
detailed and has the same tonal realism as the upper registers

The other new arrival and the reason why the Arcam is called
the irDAC in the first place is the remote control that it is supplied with.
This allows for input selection and offers control over some playback software
on computers – it certainly works with iTunes, Foo bar and Spotify. The remote
appears to be lifted wholesale from the D33 – the ‘AES’ and ‘Filter’ buttons
don’t do anything in relation to the irDAC – and it is no beauty, but given
that most of the competition aren’t supplied with one at all, it is a welcome
addition – especially as the volume buttons appear pleasingly promiscuous and
can also control a Naima Supernait and Cambridge Audio 851A integrated
amplifiers.

The general fit and finish of the Arcam is good, too. The
irDAC is part of the rapidly expanding rSeries range of components, which means
it shares the one-piece body with removable underside and back panel. The
little black unit feels impressively substantial and neat touches from the
original rDAC like the input lights that glow red when selected and green when
signal locked, are retained.

There wasn’t anything significantly wrong with the original
rDAC, but as well as the useful extra features the irDAC manages to take
matters a good few steps forward. The Arcam has a two-setting USB input, the first
is driverless and works to 96kHz, while the second uses a driver and allows for
192kHz playback. With the driver installed (which came off the D33 webpage
suggesting that the bigger DAC has loaned another piece of technology to the
irDAC), the Arcam gets an awful lot right.

The Arcam has a
two-setting USB input, the first is driverless and works to 96kHz, while the
second uses a driver and allows for 192kHz playback.